Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, by Shashi Tharoor

Staff review by Chris Saliba

Shashi Tharoor’s 250 year political, economic and moral history of the British in India.

In May 2015 Indian author and politician Shashi Tharoor gave a speech at the Oxford Union on the proposed topic, “Britain Owes Reparations to Her Former Colonies.” When he tweeted the speech it went viral. Amazed by the response, he decided to write a full length book addressing this very subject. Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India is the result.

The British presence in India covers a period of some 250 years, from 1600 when the East India Company was first formed, to the achievement of independence in 1947. The 25 centuries in between is a dishonourable tale of looting, racism, political chicanery (including fomenting murderous hatreds between Muslims and Hindus), impoverishment and brutality. The British used India as a bank on which they could call for endless withdrawals, shipping enormous wealth back to the mother country. The British did this with an almost blithe spirit, fully confident in their racial superiority. Writes Tharoor, “The British ruled nineteenth-century India with unshakeable self-confidence, buttressed by protocol, alcohol and a lot of gall.”

Winston Churchill, lauded as a wartime leader, was overtly racist toward the Indians. He diverted grains from starving Indians to already well fed soldiers. Churchill felt Indian famines were the people’s own fault for “breeding like rabbits”, and when one of his officers tried to prod his conscience on the matter the glib response was, “why hasn’t Ghandi died yet?”.

Perhaps the most devastating indictment of the British in India was the Jalliawala Bagh massacre that killed 379 innocent people (that's the official estimate, the numbers could be higher). The man responsible, military sadist Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, got off with a censure by the House of Commons. Rudyard Kipling hailed him as “The Man Who Saved India” and a public campaign raised almost a quarter of a million pounds in today’s money for him.

You would think such a legacy would be cause for shame, but high numbers of the British feel Empire as something to be proud of.

It’s common to think of India as a poor country, and that it has always been that way. Tharoor goes through the statistics to show that before the arrival of the British in 1600, India was generating 23 percent of world GDP, while Britain’s share of global GDP was 1.8 percent. By 1940, India was considered a third world country.

In many ways, Inglorious Empire is a riposte to Niall Ferguson’s 2003 book, Empire, which lauded the achievements of the British. Tharoor provides an energetic critique of Ferguson’s views on the supposed benefits provided by the British Empire.

Inglorious Empire is an eye opener of a book, on a subject that doesn’t get much ventilation today. It is sure to educate, shock and stimulate deep reflection on our collective history under the British Empire.

Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, by Shashi Tharoor. Published by Scribe. ISBN: 9781925322576 RRP: $32.99

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